Strawberries
by Ebony Mitsu
Summary: Ami wants Makoto's help with a project. Seems like a harmless enough sitch, right? Lady Luck doesn't seem to think it ought be so simple. But they say the path to true love never did run smooth ;  A fluffy little one-shot with some hilarity sewn in. Enjoy


**Title; Strawberries**

**Genre/s; Romance, Humour**

**Pairing/s; Ami/Makoto**

**Summary; Ami wants Makoto's help, but Makoto just wants Ami . . . **

**(get your minds outta the gutters ppl! shesh some ppl are just sooo dirty-minded these days lol ; ) since in my last ficlet with this pairing Makoto was dead, i decided to do a nice fluffy little thing as well. Enjoy x)**

The doorbell rang again.

"I'm coming!" Makoto shouted, wiping her hands on a tea towel as she walked down her hallway. She looped the cloth through a belt-loop on the waistband of her denim shorts. When she opened the door she stood back in shock; Ami turned to face her.

"Ami-chan! W . . . what brings you here?" she asked, thrown a little off balance.

The blunette didn't speak for a minute and Makoto wondered why she was hesitating. "Anou . . . Konnichiwa, Mako-chan . . . i was wondering if you could help me with something?"

Makoto nodded and moved aside to hold the door open and let her through. She was still a bit confused, but if Ami wanted her help then she would give it. She led the smaller senshi through to her living room and left her there for a minute, returning shortly with some small cakes on a plate and two glasses and a jug of lemonade. After pouring the drinks she sat at one end of the sofa and sipped her own, watching Ami. Just when she thought she was going to have to break the silence Ami spoke.

"Anou . . . gomen nasai, for disturbing you."

Makoto allowed a small smile. "No, it's fine, i wasn't really busy."

Ami returned the smile. "Ah, ok. Well . . . i was wondering if you could help me with a project?"

"A project?" Makoto blinked. Ami was the smartest girl in the school, probably even the smartest student, period. Why would she need help?

"Yes, it's for my mom. It's her birthday soon and i wanted to make her a cake, a strawberry shortcake, but i've been having some problems with it." she explained, looking at the table in front of her. Then she looked up and her expression was soft. "I was hoping you would help me, you're so good with this sort of thing."

Sipping her drink, Makoto leaned back against the corner of the sofa. So that was it; a cake. Makoto ignored the ache in her chest, she was used to this by now. In some ways Ami was as bad as Usagi; neither knew the effect they had upon others. And Ami had been having an affect on Makoto for a long time now.

"Alright, i'll help you. It'll be fun." Makoto smiled. Ami watched her walk back into the kitchen, smiling but not following immediately. Makoto thought she had hidden the sadness, but Ami had seen it anyway. She wondered why and supposed it might be because she didn't have any family. Suddenly she felt guilty. She couldn't help but feel she had done something wrong. With a sigh she finally followed, only to find Makoto putting some dough into a tin before placing it in the pre-heated oven.

Makoto had been so intent on putting the dough in to bake she hadn't heard Ami come up behind her, so when she turned she all but ran into her with a startled "Oh!"

The two girls stood there, neither moving for a long moment, and Makoto was sure that Ami could hear her heart beating furiously. The idea turned her a faint shade of pink. Ami swallowed several times before moving back and muttering a sorry. Even when Ami turned and walked over to the table to sit down Makoto didn't move until she managed to forcefully wrench herself from the spot to which she was rooted. She busied herself with finding clean mixing bowls and other equipment and ingredients before turning to face Ami again having regained her composure and lost her pink flush.

"Anou . . . gomen nasai, Ami-chan, for the mess." she gestured around the kitchen, which Ami now noticed was dusted with a fine layer of white flour. "I was making bread." The blunette nodded.

Makoto busied herself again with the bookshelf on the other side of the kitchen table. Makoto had been living on her own for years now, and she loved housekeeping as much as she loved gardening and cooking; it gave her a sense of acomplishment that she didn't think she could get if she still lived with parents. She missed them for sure; sometimes she still had nightmares that woke her in a cold sweat, but it didn't get in the way of her life any more and hadn't done so for years. She selected a cookbook that looked very worn and laid it on the table in front of Ami and flipped through it.

"There are several recipies in this book, and they're better than the others and each one is in some way unique." she explained to the shorter girl, leaning over her as she flipped the pages to show her the various recipies she was talking about. "Me personally, i like this one best." she pointed it out. "But you'll know what your mother likes better than i do, and you might find one of the others more to your liking." Makoto suddenly became accutely aware of the way she was leaning over the girl and moved back with a sudden jerk. She took a deep breath and moved to the other side of the kitchen.

_Damn it,' _she thought to herself, _'I don't normally struggle so much. Why am i finding it so difficult to be around her now?'_

Ami had barely noticed, so absorbed was she in selecting the perfect cake that Makoto barely stifled a giggle when she looked over at her. Finally Ami nodded and stood, carrying the book over to Makoto open at a page. "Would this one be ok? Do you think she'd like it?" she asked.

Makoto looked at the book and the recipe being pointed out. She smiled; the cake was heart-shaped and decorated with white butter-icing and fresh strawberries. "Hai, and i know how to shape it, it's easy to do." Makoto said with a smile and she got out some tins to put the cake mixture in. She helped Ami prepare the cake mixture, correcting the small mistakes she made, and there were not many. When they were done she put the cake-mix-filled tin in the oven and removed her bread and left it on a rack to cool, deciding to cut some of it up so she and Ami could have a snack. She put her kettle on and took two teacups down from a cupboard along with a teapot. After swilling hot water around the teapot(1) she placed some teabags in and filled it with hot water. She carried the teapot to the table and Ami hurried up to fetch the cups as she turned to get them and the milk and sugar. As they sat there waiting for the cake to cook they sipped tea and ate bread and jam that Makoto had made a few days ago, chatting about this and that. Makoto began to feel as though she had some control over the situation again.

That was, until they took the cake out of the oven.

As Makoto removed it, Ami had begun to weigh out ingredients for the butter-icing. Makoto tipped the cake out onto a rack to cool and turned to see Ami struggling to open the bag of icing. She went over to help, and as she reached for the bag it burst in a small _puff _of white powder.

Ami sneezed several times while Makoto coughed. When they felt it was safe to open their eyes they stood there staring at the bowel and blinked for several silent minutes. Then they stared at each other. Ami couldn't help it; Makoto's face was completely white! She burst into laughter at the sight of Makoto's green eyes blinking at her in confusion out of a white face.

Makoto stared at the laughing girl for several seconds before giving her a lopsided grin. She supposed she did look pretty funny. When she realised how white Ami was - she had been directly in front of the bag and was completely white - she too doubled over with laughter. The sight of the room only made the laughing fit worse. When they thought they had finally sobered Makoto developed hiccoughs, and this sent both of them into hysterics yet again.

Finally Makoto calmed down enough to speak. "Ok, i think we both need a _hic _shower." she said. The hiccough made Ami laugh more and when she finally sobered and wiped her eyes it left a streak in the whiteness on her face. Makoto supressed her laughter with difficulty. "You can _hic_ go first. Leave your _hic _clothes in my room and _hic _i'll wash th-_hic_-em." Makoto pulled a face; she couldn't talk with these hiccoughs. "I'll also leave so-_hic_-um clothes out for you to _hic _borrow until i can _hic _dry yours ok?"

Ami burst into giggles again. It was just so funny! She couldn't remember the last time she had seen Makoto look so irritated before. She kept screwing her eyes and mouth up like a six year old would. And she was so _white_!

Makoto knew why Ami was laughing so hard, and again she couldn't help the smile that formed on her face. She led Ami to the bathroom, which was joined to her room by a door, and showed her how the shower worked and where everything was before leaving the girl to herself. While she waited she laid out clean clothes - a white skirt she never wore anymore and a pale pink blouse, and cleaned the kitchen. It didn't take her long, only about ten minutes, and by that time she heard the water stop running. She took a deep breath and counted to ten while she continued to clean the same section of kitchen counter, only stopping when she heard a small cough that signalled the other girl's entry into the kitchen. She ignored the odd sensation that came with seeing Ami dressed in _her _clothes - she had spoken to Haruka and Michiru often enough, without the others knowing, about her sexuality to know that it was pride - and nodded and went into her room. Makoto made sure she had locked the door behind her. She stripped on the way into the bathroom and stood under the shower for a _long _time. After washing her hair thoroughly and making sure there were no white patches left she exited and wrapped herself in a fluffy green towel and grabbed a smaller one for her hair which she began to towel dry on her way back into her room. She grabbed a new set of clothes - black loose-fitting jeans and a white t-shirt - changed and put all the powdery clothes in a heap near her door. Still holding the towel and rubbing at her loose hair she walked into the kitchen.

Ami had managed to make the butter-icing and had chopped some of the strawberries into halves. Makoto just stood in the doorway watching her and still towelling her hair. She shook her head when she remembered something else Haruka had said to her and cleared her throat to announce her return.

When Ami turned she had been smiling, but seeing Makoto with her hair down made her stop and pause. It was a rare sight, since Makoto preferred her hair to be in a ponytail and felt more comfortable when it was out of her face but for the two locks that usually framed her face. To see her now with damp chestnut locks falling to her waist, was a sight she had never expected. She decided it made her look prettier and she felt that Makoto ought to wear it that way more often, but didn't think to voice the opinion. Makoto appeared to sense the slight awkwardness and moved over to the cooling rack, shaping the cake into two halves of a heart.

She watched Ami mix some finely chopped strawberries into the icing before spreading it onto the cake. Makoto took a piping bag that Ami appeared to have already filled and placed small mounds of icing at equal distances around the shape. When she moved away to throw the bag in the bin and place some things in the sink Ami placed the full strawberries, point up, between the mounds and the halves around the edge. Makoto watched her clean up the workspace around her and the edges of the cake board before stepping back with a satisfied sigh. "Arigatou, Mako-chan."

"It was no problem Ami-chan, really. I enjoyed it." the brunette replied, tucking loose strands of hair behind her ear as she walked to the sink with an empty mixing bowl. "I hope your mother likes the cake." she added.

Turning back revealed Ami to be pinching icing from the near-empty bowl. The blunette glowed pink for a second before holding out a finger to Makoto with some of the mixture on it. "I'm sure she will. What do you think? I added the strawberries so that it didn't taste so sickly-sweet."

Makoto nodded her approval, then froze when she looked at the icing on the end of Ami's finger. Should she or shouldn't she? Haruka had told her that the sooner she made her feelings known the better, for everyone. But she didn't want to scare Ami away. But this could be her only chance; Ami was going to Berlin after the summer to study at a Medical School.

When she saw the slight frown on Ami's lips and the question in her eyes - _are you ok?_ - her mind was made up. Now or never right?

Makoto ducked her head slightly to suck the icing off the tip of Ami's finger. But she stayed there a few seconds longer than normally she would have. After swirling her tongue lightly over the fingertip - one open eye revealed the smaller woman's slight shiver - Makoto stood again and smiled with eyes closed to cover up what had happened just in case. She didn't notice Ami's pink face or shocked and thoroughly surprised expression, now did she realise that Ami was frozen stock still and hadn't moved. Inwardly Makoto was half kicking herself for the slip up, half congratulating herself for actually doing it. She wondered what Haruka would say and how she would react.

When she opened her eyes she did notice that Ami, now with one hand on the kitchen counter almost to steady herself, was staring up at her with her mouth slightly open. A mixture of hope, surprise, confusion, confusion, and something else that Makoto wasn't quite sure she had seen before in the sapphire eyes that watched her so carefully.

"Tastes like strawberries." Makoto said with a smile.


End file.
